Tuesday, 31 January 2012

Hello! Another day, another DIY. It almost seems like that anyway – today’s are
these Miu Miu inspired patterned tights. Me and my friend Clare had a chill craft afternoon, and ended up with paint stuck
all over our legs, but it was well worth it. I'm going to be making more of these, using different stencils. I'm thinking jellyfish for one, and daisies for another :)

For these, I followed the DIY on the Haute Pursuit's blog, but added my own step - you should make & use stencils. This will make sure you get the right shape, and you don't have to worry if you're not great at hand painting or lack any kind of skill with a steady hand (like me).

Another tip - DEFINITELY don't take off until COMPLETELY dry. Very important.

Monday, 30 January 2012

My outfit today is a clash of the 60s and 70s, with my 1960s style
leather bag from oasap.com and my many bows, combined with this amazing
vintage dress from the 1970s. Until my hair is re-blued, I’m sticking to
pastel greens and pinks. (I actually really like it as a colour
palette, it’s very spring-like, no?)

My hair bow I also DIY'd: after I hemmed my dress shorter, I used the left-over fabric to make some hair bows. So my hair bow and dress match!

Saturday, 28 January 2012

Okay. So with all my bragging about how easy it was to get pastel blue hair.... well HAHAHA on me: it's gone green. Still, I don't hate it, and it's gone quite a nice pastel green at least, not seaweed green or oscar the grouch green or baby-poo green. At the very least. Anyway, this week I'm going to try bleaching it again and then mixing Turquoise hairdye with Blue hairdye and see what happens.

I paired my green hair with an amazing pleated pastel skirt that I bought in Tokyo. Isn't it pretty? Also, I got this lovely bag vintage as well, for $5 in Salvos, just yesterday! And it fits my camera - no more ugly red (and practical) camera bag for me! Hooray!

Monday, 23 January 2012

Hello, everyone! I wanted to share with you all my DIY pastel hair experience. While I am not a hairdresser, and have never bleached anyone's hair but my own, I am well experienced in home hair dying and bleaching (I'm pretty sure I haven't seen my natural hair colour since I was 12 years old) and have had black, brown, purple, red, very bright red, bright blonde, orange (and a particularly intriguing combination of red, black and blonde when i was experimenting with terrible hair in my 15 year old scene kid days) hair. I never go to the hairdresser. I have never had pastel hair before, so I am also by no means an expert, or even really very experienced on this either. So don't use this DIY as absolute gospel, and you think if I've got things wrong or it sounds silly, you can ignore it or go to your hairdresser for advice instead, but by all means use this as a guide to help or inspire you if you're trying to achieve pastel (particularly blue or turquoise) hair.

OKAY, disclaimer over, this is how it's done.

Phase 1: The bleaching phase. This is the scary part. Bleach has to potential to melt and fry and burn off your lovely locks. If you're hesitant, get it done at the hairdressers. Or if you're silly like me, do it at home! But do it carefully. You need to do this right so that you don't kill your hair, and if you have hair that is any darker than medium blonde, expect it to take a few weeks and at least 2 bleaches. Hide yourself away from everyone you know, like I did, by conducting the first phase of bleaching on holidays, where I wasn't going to see anyone important (or anyone who would laugh at me) for a week.

This is some pretty serious bleach, designed to lift your hair colour from 6 - 8 shades. It also has a blonde toner in it, so you don't go as yellow as you would otherwise if you were just using developer and powder bleach. I highly recommend it, it did a fantastic job! I went way blonder than I had expected, as I was starting on a pretty dark dyed brown. Before bleaching, make sure you DON'T shampoo your hair for at least a day, and let it get nice and greasy, or your scalp is going to HURT a LOT. The chemicals in your greasy hair will protect the skin on your scalp :)

START BLEACHING on the ends of your hair, working your way up. DO NOT apply any to the roots until the last 10 - 15 minutes of the bleaching process (I did this, and look how blonde the roots still went!) The bleach will work on your roots really quickly because of the heat raditating from your scalp at this level. The bleach should not be on your hair for any longer than 45 minutes. Really. Your hair will melt off.

Wait a week or two, and bleach again!

**NOT BLONDE ENOUGH**

(If you still have dark yellow bits, or it looks like this, you'll need to wait a week or two, then bleach AGAIN. You probably won't get a nice pastel blue if you dye over this.)

**BLONDE ENOUGH, BUT COULD GO EVEN BLONDER**

You need to wait for at least a week before redoing the whole bleaching process. In this time, you need to be looking after your hair (no straightening or blowdrying) and doing some serious deep conditioning treatments. You can deep condition your hair using regular conditioner, by applying it to dry and hair and whacking it up in a shower cap for 20 or so minutes, then washing it out. Do this a few times between bleaches. And don't bleach again until your hair feels soft and healthy.

I figured that I didn't want to go a whole another 8 shades lighter (and less damage to my hair, hopefully), so this bleach kit, while still extremely strong, is only designed to lighten your hair 5 - 7 shades. It's also got a blonde toner, so you avoid the yellowness just a little (but be warned, it WILL still go yellow).

Same again for the bleaching process: start at the ends and work up, leave it for 30 minutes, THEN apply the rest to your roots, leave it on for ten more minutes, and then wash off.

Use a silver/blue toner to get rid of the yellowness. I used Schwarzkopf's LIVE Colour Silver Toner. I did this so that my hair would be less yellow when I put the blue in, because blue + yellow = green, and I didn't want entirely green hair.

When can you do this? Immediately after bleaching! Or you can wait however long you would like. This step will not hurt your hair.

Now.. to go turquoise...?

or pastel blue?

After bleaching, you can then begin dying immediately!

Final product #1 - PASTEL TURQUOISE - To achieve this turquoise pastel colour, I used 1/4 Manic Panic Atomic Turqouise with 3/4 conditioner (I think I ended up using 150ml of Conditioner mixed with 50ml of Hairdye) and then left it on my hair for 6 hours in a shower cap after making sure it was throughly worked through. Manic Panic dye will not hurt your hair, and with all the conditioner you're probably doing more good than bad to your hair in this step. You can leave it on as long as you like. Leave it on for AT LEAST an hour if you're in a rush, but if you only leave it for this long, it won't end up as vibrant.

**UPDATE** So, Manic Panic's Atomic Turquoise will eventually (like, after 2 washes) go more like pastel green. At least it did on my hair. If you don't want this, try a less greeny-blue colour, like Directions Atlantic Blue or Lagoon Blue.

Final Product #2 - PASTEL BLUE - To achieve this blue pastel colour, I used 2% (a small spoonful) Manic Panic's Atomic Turquoise mixed with 8% La Riche Directions Atlantic Blue, and 90% conditioner. I can't even comprehend how ridiculously vibrantly blue your hair would be if you used Atlantic blue undiluted, because my hair ended up pretty vibrant, even though the mixture I used was so diluted! Make sure you make at least 200mls of mixture, perhaps more if you have long/thick hair. Work the colour throughly through your hair, and put in a shower cap. Leave it on for a few hours, at least 2 or 3, or for up to 6 like I did. Then rinse and enjoy!

More on maintaining your pastel colour to come...

And to see my new pastel pink hair colour, check out my more recent blog posts. I will try and post a DIY on obtaining pastel pink hair real soon, but it does basically follow these steps, concluding with using a pink rather than a blue dye (obviously).

The final product of my adventures into the world of home bleaching and hair dye - pastel turquoise!

Also, another outfit for you to view. I completely didn't know what colour to match with the new turquoise hair today, so I stuck to a very neutral palette; the only colour I could think to match with blue was blue (so very inventive) so I stole my brother's blue socks. Now I'm going to have to do some experimenting with what clothes go with blue hair. I think all reds, yellows and oranges can be ruled out. Although perhaps I'll find a way to clash those colours which will still be pleasing on the eye. I think it'll force me to combine items in my wardrobe in a way I never have before, at the very least.

What do you think of the turquoise hairdo, anyway?

I'm sorry that I only ever wear these shoes now. Once I get hooked on a pair of shoes, I wear them every day until they're ruined and broken. The heel has already begun to wear off (grrrrr), but I have worn them a LOT, so they are lasting quite a while for cheap shoes.

Sunday, 22 January 2012

I'm blonde today! But I'll only be blonde for this post, because this gorgeous canary yellow is NOT going to be the final product of hair dying. It may look good on some people (in rare instances), but for me, canary yellow is not the way to go. I had enough of experimenting with bad yellow hair when I was 15. No, you'll all see the final product of this home bleaching and dying tomorrow ;)

Today though, I'm wearing an incredible vintage dress that I got in Tokyo (the label is "Baking Soda" - it's just too cute!), and an amazing new 60s style leather bag c/o oasap.com!

Monday, 16 January 2012

Well, I love my sewing machine. I sure do. I'm so loving being able to make my own clothes, AND so I made another dress. And I thought I'd share it with you all, again. I actually managed to make it fit properly this time! To make it, I half used a pattern (a vintage 1960s dress pattern for the top) and half used my own pattern (for the pleated skirt), then joined them both up, and used buttons on the back. Check it out!

I'm pretty happy with it. I'm just soooo excited now because there are SO many possibilities, so many dresses to be made, now that I know that I can successfully make one! I'm thinking crazy detailed giraffe or safari print fabric in a 50s style dress, open back with bows and a scalloped peter pan collar..... I can make anything I want! I think I'm going to become the crazy dress lady. I will! And I sure am excited about it!

Thursday, 12 January 2012

I am realising that this blog is slowly but surely morphing from a fashion blog to a DIY sewing blog. I don't think I mind at all. And I can do both at once! Here's a real quick picture of the dress I made this morning from a vest (it was way too big, or I wouldn't have chopped it up) that I got $1 from Lifeline the other day, and the cream/white fabric was from there too, I got about 2 metres for $2! Pretty good!